phyllo wrote:I don't live in your country and I have no stake in your dumbass politics.

Yet you seem intent on meddling from the comforts of your socialist paradise just the same.

(In fact if I was considering self-interest, it would probably be better for me if Trump was gone.)

Well duh.

I'm looking at this as an outsider. If I say that you're not assigning blame correctly, it's because I really think that you are not assigning blame correctly. You just really, really want to believe that I am biased and you are not biased.

You are biased. You meet a mountain of evidence and continue to dig in, completely undaunted by an ever-growing litany of facts.

You guys are constantly demonizing conservatives, republicans and the GOP. You whitewash liberals and democrats. You are ridiculously partisan. You have nothing constructive to say. You are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Which fallacy is this, pompous pedant?

Silhouette wrote:affirming a disjunct is concluding e.g. that if Republicans are stated as guilty then Democrats are not

Exactly!

It's borderline tu quoque or "whataboutism" when someone makes a point about A, you say "well what about B?" or "what about you?"

What about democrats? Well what about them? The fact that some of them are conservatives who label themselves democrats means democrats are just as bad?

Hillary Clinton:

She was raised in a politically conservative household,[9] and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon,[21] and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964.[22]

Rodham's early political development was shaped mostly by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister.

In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science.[24][25] During her freshman year, she served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans.[26][27] As the leader of this "Rockefeller Republican"-oriented group,[28] she supported the elections of moderate Republicans John Lindsay to Mayor of New York City and Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke to the United States Senate.[29] She later stepped down from this position. In 2003 Clinton would write that her views concerning the American Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War were changing in her early college years.[26] In a letter to her youth minister at that time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal".[30]

To help her better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program.[33] Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican Representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination.[33] Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. However, she was upset by the way Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages and left the Republican Party for good.[33]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton

If not for republican racism, she'd be a republican.

She's an economic conservative who happens to have a heart for social justice. So for all intents and purposes, she is a conservative. If she wears a democratic badge, so what?

I could paint the same sort of picture of Merkel.

But this is all beside the point that conservative ideals, held and advocated by who-the-hell-ever, are deleterious to the people which is evidenced by anywhere you look and by any metric you choose.

Pedro I Rengel wrote:Like that beautiful passage, "if everybody prints money at the same time, then you won't get inflation!"

It's... It's really something.

Who said that? Not me.

I said if everyone prints, you won't get currency devaluation because currencies are valued relative to other currencies.

You have the mistaken notion that money printing is synonymous with price inflation, but you have no idea by what mechanism it possibly could, because you didn't arrive at that idea as a conclusion, but bought it from a college dropout flunkout asserting economics is just common sense, and now in your endeavor to be praised for your insight, you're exhibiting your ignorance; a kinda wardrobe malfunction

She's an economic conservative who happens to have a heart for social justice.

Oh, please, don't buy the PR. There are roles to play, like commedia character types, depending on the party. She is certainly neo-con in economic policy and foreign policy, yes. The other stuff is the noises you make if you are a Democrat.

She's an economic conservative who happens to have a heart for social justice.

Oh, please, don't buy the PR. There are roles to play, like commedia character types, depending on the party. She is certainly neo-con in economic policy and foreign policy, yes. The other stuff is the noises you make if you are a Democrat.

I can believe she has womanly compassion for the oppressed. You don't think so?

She's an economic conservative who happens to have a heart for social justice.

Oh, please, don't buy the PR. There are roles to play, like commedia character types, depending on the party. She is certainly neo-con in economic policy and foreign policy, yes. The other stuff is the noises you make if you are a Democrat.

I can believe she has womanly compassion for the oppressed. You don't think so?

No. I see no reason to believe it. Any, hey, men are capable of empathy. I make no assumptions about a woman politician.

Her husband gutted the social support system and I haven't heard her criticise that, then or now.He allowed legislation that put an incredible amount of poor and black in prison. Haven't heard her criticize that.He allowed Wall St. to go apeshit. Silent on that.Her charity was really a way to funnel money toward her.She supports neo-con moves in foreign policy and that puts poor americans in danger - since they will be the soldiers - and poor foreigners. She's a hawk.She has never challenged the policies of the IMF, for example, in the 3rd world.

Given your own thoughts about how horrible the republian policies are for regular people, how can you assume she has empathy when she is essentially for those policies?Supporting gay rights and other social liberal issues might have more to do with her own social circles than empathy.And heck, I would guess some republicans supported gay marriage and the like.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:No. I see no reason to believe it. Any, hey, men are capable of empathy. I make no assumptions about a woman politician.

Her husband gutted the social support system and I haven't heard her criticise that, then or now.He allowed legislation that put an incredible amount of poor and black in prison. Haven't heard her criticize that.He allowed Wall St. to go apeshit. Silent on that.Her charity was really a way to funnel money toward her.She supports neo-con moves in foreign policy and that puts poor americans in danger - since they will be the soldiers - and poor foreigners. She's a hawk.She has never challenged the policies of the IMF, for example, in the 3rd world.

Given your own thoughts about how horrible the republian policies are for regular people, how can you assume she has empathy when she is essentially for those policies?Supporting gay rights and other social liberal issues might have more to do with her own social circles than empathy.And heck, I would guess some republicans supported gay marriage and the like.

I don't like her either, but all I'm saying is she's an economic conservative and social liberal. I categorize her as a conservative and see little distinction with any other, except tampons in the mensroom, as if that were a reason to vote for someone. Personally, I'd rather have Trump because he's a quicker road to Progressiveville than any centrist. I don't use tampons (except for that time I slashed my leg open and a found a tampon in the glovebox useful, which the nurses at the ER got a big laugh about.)

Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative that has been used for decades in the United States in multi-dose vials

Now it's all making sense.. I kept telling em it was the preservatives that were gettin me..

Yes, the EU's heavy-handed dictation of every detail would scare me. Or course our system of making guinea pigs of citizens only to receive slaps-on-the-wrist class-action lawsuits afterward isn't any better. They make billions in profits in exchange for paying $100 million lawsuit.

..which is why we hope the Government will honour Article 50/the vote to Leave the EU, and give us back control of what goes into our consumerable goods, as that has been taken away from us for decades now.

You've no idea what I've endured at hospitals which is why I don't go near them unless visiting other people. I used to have to go for allergy shots weekly after school, which ruined my whole day. And I don't even have allergies! Never did. What I had was a munchhausen's syndrome mom.

I'm steering clear of all jabs and processed/articial additive-riddled foods, as I cannot afford to catch a medieval disease.. or even current ones for that matter. We find ourselves in troubling times indeed.

The possibility of anything we can imagine existing is endless and infinite

MagsJ wrote:..which is why we hope the Government will honour Article 50/the vote to Leave the EU, and give us back control of what goes into our consumerable goods, as that has been taken away from us for decades now.

I reckon that's a solution so long as whatever government you end up with is democratic or you'll be back in the same boat only with the EU as the profiteers of your country's slave labor like the South would have been in the US had the South won the war. We think it's bad now with low wages and republican control, just imagine if the South had won their independence; the South would have been the North's Mexico!

I'm steering clear of all jabs and processed/articial additive-riddled foods, as I cannot afford to catch a medieval disease.. or even current ones for that matter. We find ourselves in troubling times indeed.

Serendipper wrote:I reckon that's a solution so long as whatever government you end up with is democratic or you'll be back in the same boat only with the EU as the profiteers of your country's slave labor like the South would have been in the US had the South won the war.

And it's too bad the US won the war against England. All these secessions leading to smaller, less degrees of separation between governed and government. What a bad idea. The Soviet Union should have remained one country.

Serendipper wrote:I reckon that's a solution so long as whatever government you end up with is democratic or you'll be back in the same boat only with the EU as the profiteers of your country's slave labor like the South would have been in the US had the South won the war.

And it's too bad the US won the war against England. All these secessions leading to smaller, less degrees of separation between governed and government. What a bad idea. The Soviet Union should have remained one country.

England is doing better than the US in terms of democracy, happiness, education, health, and is equal on freedom.

The US drags the bottom of the OECD list on just about every metric.

The only reason to split things apart is so one can be better than another. I guess I'm more of a federalist than a republican, as much as I dislike hamilton.

I say Texas should secede then eliminate its minimum wage laws while the rest of the country jacks theirs to $15. Let's see where the shithole develops. Oh wait, nevermind, we already have Mississippi.

minwage.jpg (133.76 KiB) Viewed 2138 times

If not for federalism, the south would be slaves to the rest of the country.

Serendipper wrote:But as I said, if the UK has a strong democracy, they should be fine.

Let me laugh at this one just a sec

In the last general election, the main more right leaning party got 42.4% of the popular vote, and you need a majority to get in. So they teamed up with this hardcore Christian and Conservative, Northern Irish party, the DUP, who got 0.9% of the popular vote - and as we know from math class, 43.3% of the popular vote is more than half, so they ended up getting into government with a Conservative coalition.

See, the UK equivalent to electoral colleges are "seats", and 42.4% of the right wing vote is 317 seats (out of 650, i.e. 48.8%), and 0.9% of the right wing vote is 10 seats (1.5% of total seats), taking their combined seats over the 325 seat threshold.

Even better, in the previous general election, the main more right leaning party got 36.9% of the popular vote, which in right wing seats is 330, enough for the Conservatives to get in by themselves "with a majority"....

Add to this the fact that only 2/12 of the UK daily newspapers endorse the more left leaning party. Half of the remaining ones endorsed the more right leaning party, including the most circulated one (a tabloid i.e. trash gossip column) running an incessant campaign to discredit the leader of the more left leaning party, and only retracting what turns out to be lies in some tiny snippets near the end of some subsequent paper after the damage has already been done. This "newspaper" sells really well amongst the poor and working class. There's also a free paper owned by the owner of another even more right-ring tabloid, that is circulated within London's underground tube system which gets packed full of people going to and from work every day. The remaining 4 papers don't endorse anyone.

There are only 3 significant right wing parties in the UK and 6 left of centre, who combined consistently make up the majority of voters, but spread more thinly over more parties.

Serendipper wrote:But as I said, if the UK has a strong democracy, they should be fine.

Let me laugh at this one just a sec

Yeah, I kinda suspected this would happen, but I didn't want to presume anything.

In the last general election, the main more right leaning party got 42.4% of the popular vote, and you need a majority to get in. So they teamed up with this hardcore Christian and Conservative, Northern Irish party, the DUP, who got 0.9% of the popular vote - and as we know from math class, 43.3% of the popular vote is more than half, so they ended up getting into government with a Conservative coalition.

See, the UK equivalent to electoral colleges are "seats", and 42.4% of the right wing vote is 317 seats (out of 650, i.e. 48.8%), and 0.9% of the right wing vote is 10 seats (1.5% of total seats), taking their combined seats over the 325 seat threshold.

Even better, in the previous general election, the main more right leaning party got 36.9% of the popular vote, which in right wing seats is 330, enough for the Conservatives to get in by themselves "with a majority"....

Add to this the fact that only 2/12 of the UK daily newspapers endorse the more left leaning party. Half of the remaining ones endorsed the more right leaning party, including the most circulated one (a tabloid i.e. trash gossip column) running an incessant campaign to discredit the leader of the more left leaning party, and only retracting what turns out to be lies in some tiny snippets near the end of some subsequent paper after the damage has already been done. This "newspaper" sells really well amongst the poor and working class. There's also a free paper owned by the owner of another even more right-ring tabloid, that is circulated within London's underground tube system which gets packed full of people going to and from work every day. The remaining 4 papers don't endorse anyone.

There are only 3 significant right wing parties in the UK and 6 left of centre, who combined consistently make up the majority of voters, but spread more thinly over more parties.

This is UK democracy.

That does not bode well. How did it come to this? Is it degenerating or is this improvement from some worse state of affairs?

I wouldn't mind learning more about UK politics, so whatever you feel like sharing would be appreciated. You know, news that pisses you off or whatever.

And what of the healthcare over there? Is it an object of national pride? Is it good? No good? You guys still using leeches and rusty bone saws over there?

Serendipper wrote:England is doing better than the US in terms of democracy, happiness, education, health, and is equal on freedom.

That doesn't address my point. At no point do I hear anyone in the mainstream media talk about how larger countries are harder to manage democracy in. Your points about the UK only add to that.

The US drags the bottom of the OECD list on just about every metric.

The only reason to split things apart is so one can be better than another. I guess I'm more of a federalist than a republican, as much as I dislike hamilton.

I say Texas should secede then eliminate its minimum wage laws while the rest of the country jacks theirs to $15. Let's see where the shithole develops. Oh wait, nevermind, we already have Mississippi.

minwage.jpg

We don't know what long term effects will be. And further, with Texas out of the states, all sorts of things can happen in the states. Do you know how much Texas damages textbook curriculum.? They basically have veto in relation to all publishers of textbooks to schools.

If not for federalism, the south would be slaves to the rest of the country.

But as I said, if the UK has a strong democracy, they should be fine.

In the long run they have a better chance to be a democracy if they are not in the EU. Distant centralized governments are more disconnected from the people.

Y'all, if I stop responding here for a while, check for me at neosophi. I can't function pinned between cops and criminals. Gotta lose the cops so I can defend myself. In the mean time I'm focusing my efforts on the politics forums.

Serendipper wrote:That does not bode well. How did it come to this? Is it degenerating or is this improvement from some worse state of affairs?

I made a spreadsheet to investigate further, going back to the 1979 general election so far.

The most frustrating part is that the popular vote for left of centre parties has exceeded the popular vote for right of centre parties every single time, except in 2015 where the electorate voted right more than left by about 2%. For every single one of the 9 other general elections, the left outvoted the right by percentages varying from 9% to over 33%. For the first Tony Blair vote, the left vote about doubled the right vote.

And yet, for these 10 general elections, the main left of centre party got in 3 times. That's the left winning the popular vote 9 times and getting in 3 times...The left need to outnumber the right by over 25% to get in. Anything less and the right get in.

As for the seat to popular vote proportions, it's not as clear cut in favour of the right as it seemed from the past few elections. Yes, every time the right's seats were disproportionately more than indicated by the popular vote, they got in, but the 3 times the left got in, their seats were disproportionately more than indicated by the popular vote. This could be for many possible reasons ranging from the sinister to the quite innocent. It may just be that there are some seats that swing either way that don't need many votes to win compared to the rest of the country, and when the right wins them they get in and when the left wins them they get in. It could be gerrymandering, it could be outright fraud. I'd need to go into far more detail to figure that one out.

But what's clear either way is that this democracy is broken. At least you can argue that whenever the top right party got in, their votes were more than those for the top left party, which indicates at least a superficially functional system in spite of all the issues going on underneath.

There has been an electoral reform referendum, but the right led a much more successful campaign basically arguing that the FPTP system is simple and works + there's no problem with it, and the alternative on offer was the "alternative vote", which they framed as overly complicated. Basically they appealed to stupidity and won with more than twice as many votes.

Serendipper wrote:And what of the healthcare over there? Is it an object of national pride? Is it good? No good? You guys still using leeches and rusty bone saws over there?